A BRADFORD teacher living in lockdown in Italy was threatened with arrest by police for taking his children for a walk.

Rino Grice, his Italian wife Veruska and their children, Thomas and William, have lived in Milan for five years, and usually come to the UK every month. Mr Grice owns the Yorkshire Music School in Saltaire and his wife has a music school in Milan, where she is from.

The family was on holiday in Jordan when the country closed its borders to Italians last month, following the outbreak of coronavirus in Italy. Speaking from his home in Italy, Mr Grice said: "We didn't think it was a problem as we were already in Jordan. After a week there we went to Israel, to spend another week. After four passport checks, they refused us entry. Our children have dual nationality, we have English passports, but my wife only has an Italian one. They said we had to go back to Jordan, but its borders were closed, so we were trapped at the Israeli border. It was like no man's land.

"I asked a customs agent if I bought a flight to Milan for that evening could we enter Israel. They said yes, and gave us a one-day visa. We got a taxi to Tel Aviv airport. Is that a policy of containment? We were free to infect (if we had the virus) as many people as we could that day!"

When the family returned to Milan they made the evening news. "We were the first Italians to be barred entry into Israel," said Mr Grice. "On arrival at Milan airport we were greeted by people in full body suits checking our temperature. If we'd had high temperatures we would have been put into quarantine. Thankfully, none of us had the virus."

They got home to find Milan "very quiet". Mr Grice said: "We later moved to our house on the Ligurian Coast where things were a little more relaxed until March 11 when the Prime Minister made the whole of Italy a Red Zone. This changed everything; there are restrictions of movement, you can only go out with authorised documentation.

"There seems to be a lot of confusion with the police here though. I took the children to a beach, there were only about five or six other people, well spaced out, and police officers came up to us and said, 'You can't sit here'. They said they would check with their commandant to see if they could deport us, or arrest us!

"We were allowed home in the end, but it seems you have to keep walking in public places, you can't sit down, even if there are no other people around. You can go for a walk, or to the shops, but only with the right documents. Italians are very tactile people, keeping a metre apart is hard. We haven't seen the worst yet; I think the numbers are going to go up."

He added: "Everything is closed, apart from shops selling produce. There was some panic-buying the first week but it has calmed down. The children are five and seven, we've told them they can't run off and go near people when we're out. My wife and I are both teachers so we're teaching them at home, using homework from their school. I've written to parents at my Saltaire school to say it's still open, as numbers are comparatively small, but I'm getting queries about doing lessons online.

"We are closely monitoring developments from the UK Government and Public Health England. The school continues to comply with the latest Government advice.

I don't know when I'll be able to fly to the UK. At the moment it's looking impossible."